Charles Schulz
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
One Piece, Vol. 59
Publishing | The 59th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s wildly popular pirate series One Piece will set a manga record with a 3.2-million copy first printing from Japanese publisher Shueisha. The previous record of 3.1 million copies was held by the 58th volume of the series. [Anime News Network]
Publishing | Mary Ann Gwinn spotlights the partnership between Fantagraphics Books and Rosebud Archives to publish archives of vintage comics. [The Seattle Times]
Comic strips | Craig Schulz, son of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, discusses the “Peanuts on Parade” public art project, David Michaelis’ controversial book Schulz & Peanuts: A Biography, and caring for his father’s legacy: “Our biggest fear has always been somebody buying up the rights and us not having any control. We’d rather have this property make $10 million a year for 50 years, than make $100 million in one year and walk away from it.” [The Press Democrat, via Journalista]
- August 9, 2010 @ 08:46 AM by Kevin Melrose
Californians can sport a Snoopy license plate, support museums
The Snoopy license plate
The California Association of Museums has launched a campaign to have a Snoopy drawing by Charles Schulz appear on a special California license plate. Proceeds from sales of the plates would establish a sustainable grant program to support state museums.
But for that to happen, at least 7,500 California drivers have to register interest in a Snoopy plate. Once there are enough interested Peanuts fans, the state will begin collecting a $50 fee from those who want the plate (more if you want it personalized). Curiously, The Snoopy Plate website doesn’t seem to list a deadline for registration.
The Snoopy plate is being made possible by Jean Schulz, the Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates and United Media Licensing, who are granting royalty-free rights to the California Association of Museums.
- May 5, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Kevin Melrose
Iconix and Schulz family purchase Peanuts rights
Peanuts
Iconix Brand Group has partnered with the heirs of Charles M. Schulz to buy the rights to Peanuts from E.W. Scripps Co.
The $175 million deal is for Scripps’ entire United Media Licensing division, which includes Dilbert and Fancy Nancy.
However, Peanuts, whose 1,200 licensing agreements generate annual retail sales of more than $2 billion worldwide, represents a majority of United Media’s revenue. Iconix will control an 80 percent share of the Peanuts brand.
Iconix, which owns the Candie’s and London Fog brands, expects Peanuts to bring in roughly $75 million in annual royalties. The Schulz heirs will receive a portion of that revenue in addition to their minority stake in the partnership.
Peanuts, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, at its peak appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers. Its characters are licensed in about 40 countries by such companies at MetLife, Hallmark, Walgreen and Universal Studios.
- April 27, 2010 @ 08:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Statistician rubs salt into Charlie Brown’s baseball wounds
This is perhaps both the nerdiest and most wonderful thing I have ever seen on the Internet. Using The Complete Peanuts as his Bible, Larry Granillo at Wezen-ball.com is attempting to calculate — on a year-by-year basis — how many games Charlie Brown’s baseball team lost.
Using my collection of these books (which only goes through 1970 for now – I’ve got to get on that), I’ve done my best to find every baseball-related strip produced in those twenty years and tally up any relevant stats that they reveal. For the most part this means counting wins and losses and documenting any stated scores, though there are a few strips here and there that mention other stats.
Yeah, I know, the team hardly ever won, but Granillo also tries to provide info on, for example, how many times Charlie Brown got hit by a line drive, and finds lots of fun trivia. Here he is, talking about the year 1954:
For as bad as Charlie Brown’s team is, he does manage to have some good players. Linus is often shown making amazing catches. On July 15, he makes his first (of many) eye-popping catch, snagging the ball after running through a jump-rope.
- January 14, 2010 @ 08:42 AM by Chris Mautner
Still, he never did get his picture on a bubble gum card
Jeez, chill out Schroeder
Yesterday was Beethoven’s birthday, and the Schulz Museum honored the occasion with a new online exhibit entitled Schulz’s Beethoven: Schroeder’s Muse. The site features an examination of both the famed composer’s music and how Schulz incorporated it into his strip, along with recollections from Jean Schulz and others, audio selections, sheet music, history and lots of comic strips. Here’s a snippet from the press release, which Mike Lynch was gracious enough to post online:
Schulz’s Beethoven, Schroeder’s Muse features 60 cartoons that include meticulously drawn music from Beethoven’s piano sonatas complemented with manuscripts, first editions, and artwork from the rich collections of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San José State University. Visitors to the on-line exhibition can listen to the music, travel to other websites to enrich their understanding of the strips, and explore cartoon and music history.
Sounds like a pretty good way to spend a Thursday afternoon to me.
- December 17, 2009 @ 10:45 AM by Chris Mautner
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up
Little Nothings Vol. 3
• NBM announced over the weekend they will release a third volume in Lewis Trondheim’s autobiographical Little Nothings series. You can read samples of the work on the company’s blog.
• The University Press of Mississippi will be publishing My Life With Charlie Brown in April. It’s a collection of essays, lectures and articles by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. If April seems to far away for you, this book is coming out next month.
• Fantagraphics unveils the covers for their next Krazy and Ignatz book (designed by Chris Ware), as well as the second volume of Prison Pit.
• Van Jensen gives readers the scoop on the upcoming book tour for Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and announces plans for a sequel in winter of next year.
• Speaking of SLG, they will be releasing an omnibus collection of Gene Yang’s early work, entitled Animal Crackers, in January.
• The Kingdom of New York is a new book featuring essays and articles from the New York Observer magazine. It also sports a spiffy cover and interior art by Drew Friedman. And apparently Fantagraphics will be releasing a collection of Friedman’s celebrity portraits in summer of 2010.
• I don’t know if we caught this on the blog yet, but apparently Chuck Dixon and Gary Kwapisz are forming a publishing company devoted to historical comics.
• Dash Shaw, who has redesigned his Web site, apparently completely reworked his 2006 book the Mother’s Mouth, cutting out pages and changing colors. The alternations are only for the French and Spanish editions, however, which seems a shame.
- November 12, 2009 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
Is it time for Shelf Porn once again? You bet your sweet bippy it is! And we’ve got a heck of a collection to share with you this week, from Caren Pilgrim, who runs the Peanuts Collectibles Web site. As you might imagine, she has quite the Peanuts-inspired collection herself.
Upon coming across her Web site, I emailed Caren and asked if she would be willing to share some photos of her collection with Robot 6 readers. Here’s what she sent in …
- November 4, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Charles Schulz gives ‘em the ax
The ax
While Peanuts creator Charles Schulz was certainly known as a all-around wonderful, decent guy, there’s no doubt he had a mischievous, smart-aleck side to him as well. Consider for instance this letter, recently donated to the Library of Congress.
In the letter, written in 1954, Schulz addresses a Ms. Elizabeth Swaim, who had recently written the cartoonist to express her distaste for the then new Charlotte Braun character, a loudmouth Charlie Brown lookalike that Swaim was not alone in disliking.
Schulz tells Swaim that he is taking her advice and getting rid of the character, but then reminds her, “Remember that you and your friends will have the death of an innocent child on your conscience! Are you prepared to accept such a responsibility?”
And, in the interest of driving his point home, he draws a picture of Charlotte Braun with an ax in her head. Wonder why that never made it into any of his “Happiness is …” books?
(via)
- November 3, 2009 @ 11:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Finally, you no longer need feel ashamed for being round-headed
If that ice sculpture story yesterday didn’t grab you, perhaps this will: In honor of Peanuts’ upcoming 60th anniversary, the powers that be are holding a lookalike photo contest, with the winners receiving a trip for four to Cedar Point, home of the Planet Snoopy amusement park. Other prizes include DVDs and other Peanuts related merchandise. Daily Cartoonist has the press release:
Peanuts
Peanuts fans of all ages are invited to submit photos of themselves or their children looking like one of these Peanuts characters: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Sally, Schroeder, Franklin, Peppermint Patty, Marcie or Pigpen, or one of Snoopy’s classic alter-egos, Joe Cool or the World War I Flying Ace. Submissions will be accepted through November 3.
Finalists, selected by a panel of celebrity judges, will be posted on November 11. The public will then be able to vote for their favorite finalist through November 30. The winners will be announced in December.
The celebrity judges include Jill Schulz, daughter of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz; country music legends Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood; “Supernanny” Jo Frost; “America’s Next Top Model” judge and fashion photographer Nigel Barker; and Victoria Reca~no, co-anchor of KTLA 5 News at 6 and KTLA 5 News at 10.
Proceeds from the contest will benefit the Boys and Girls Club of America. Winners will be announced on Dec. 5. The press release also suggests some celebrity lookalikes which … Michael Cera as Linus I can see, but Whoopi Goldberg as Woodstock? I …. guess ….
- October 22, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner
You’ve become an ice sculpture Charlie Brown!
Not content with dominating the vast world merchandising, the Peanuts empire will now take on the competitive and ever-controversial ice sculpting arena, with a new exhibit that will open on Nov. 20 in Nashville, TN. Entitled ICE!, the exhibit will re-enact scenes from A Charlie Brown Christmas using 2 million pounds of ice carved by artisans from Harbin, China. No, I am not making any of this up.
The promo video is above. You can read the intro from the official press release, which I nicked from Daily Cartoonist, after the jump.
- October 21, 2009 @ 10:50 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | O’Brien’s Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown by Tim O'Brien
Do not stare too long at Tim O’Brien’s portrait of Charlie Brown, lest madness overtake you. (via Drawn)
- July 16, 2009 @ 07:47 AM by Chris Mautner
Who will take the Schulz challenge?
The Ohio State Cartoon Library and Museum houses one of the largest and most respected collections of comic art in the United States. Now the very crowded library is looking to renovate:
Located at a highly visible location along High Street and adjacent to the Wexner Center for the Arts, the historic Sullivant Hall is in dire need of repair. The planned renovation will provide 40,000 gross square feet of space for the new Cartoon Library and Museum that will include a spacious reading room for researchers, three museum-quality galleries, and expanded storage with state-of-the-art environmental and security controls. A dedicated ground-level entry will allow for easy access to the new facility. The addition of exhibition galleries dedicated to cartoon art will facilitate public display of the Library’s extraordinary collection. Total renovation costs are estimated at $20.6 million.
To help raise the necessary funds, Charles Schulz’s widow, Jean (who has already given $1 million of her own money) is declaring she will match every dollar donated to the museum, up to $2.5 million. So don’t delay, head over here and send a few bucks to the OSU.
Or, see this video the library made to underscore their need to renovate:
(via the Schulz Library blog)
- June 25, 2009 @ 10:38 AM by Chris Mautner
Talking Comics with Tim: Andrew Farago
Cartoon Art Museum
Back in late January, I completed this email interview with Andrew Farago, curator of San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum. Events on my end delayed it being run until this week. As detailed at the museum’s site: “The Cartoon Art Museum is committed to fostering and promoting a greater appreciation of cartoon art. This it achieves through collecting, cataloging, preserving and displaying the finest representations of original cartoon art as well as providing innovative educational programs designed to enrich the cultural life of our community.” While I am pleased to run this interview, before launching into it, I want to offer my condolences to Farago and the museum staff on the February 26 death of Rod Gilchrist, the museum’s executive director for the past 11 years. My thanks to Farago for his time.
Tim O’Shea: How long has the Museum had a Cartoonist-in-Residence program–and how did you land the latest person in residence, Mike Gray?
Andrew Farago: The Cartoonist-in-Residence program was started several years back as a joint effort between the Cartoon Art Museum, The Charles M. Schulz Museum and the Northern California chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. We wanted to take advantage of the fact that we’ve got such a wealth of cartoonists in our area and give the public a regular opportunity to interact with them (and vice versa).
The artists come to us in a variety of ways. Often, someone will contact me, or another staff or board member, about his upcoming book, or a new strip launching in a local publication, or a new piece of animation that they’ve created, and that person wants to work with us to promote it.
- March 9, 2009 @ 10:58 AM by Tim O'Shea